About the NOMAS Model for DV Offender Accountability Programs

The purpose of the NOMAS Model for DV Offender Accountability Programs (formerly the NY Model for Batterer Programs) is to provide a service to the civil and criminal court systems, for men who are domestic violence offenders.

-As a service to the courts, a NY Model batterer program is utilized to extend judicial monitoring (both pre-disposition and post-disposition) and as a mechanism for offender accountability. To function effectively it is crucial that:

-A NOMAS Model program is not used as a diversion from a more serious consequence.

-Orders to attend a NOMAS Model program are made only when the court will issue a consequence to the offender who does not comply.

-NOMAS Model programs treat all men respectfully. NOMAS Model programs are not punitive in policies or practices. (If anything, courts levy punishments.) The program gives each man the opportunity to comply with his order to attend and complete the program.

-From point of referral, a NOMAS Model program rigorously monitors each participant’s adherence to program policies and procedures. Compliance reports, tailored to the request of each court, are sent to the court in a reliable and meticulous manner. The role of a NOMAS Model program as a mechanism for accountability and monitoring is of primary significance.

-A key role of a NOMAS Model program is to provide the courts with an opportunity to assess an offender’s seriousness about following the specific condition(s) of the court’s order to attend the program. One local magistrate said to a domestic violence defendant, “I am ordering you to a NOMAS Model program, along with other stipulations. I do not know whether you will adhere to all of those stipulations. But I will know for sure if you are satisfactorily attending the batterer program. If you are, that signals to me that you are doing what I am requiring – at least in that area. I can then hope that you are doing so across the board. However, if you do not – that is a sure signal of your disregard, and I will respond with swift and appropriate severity.”

-The NOMAS Model for DV Offender Programs is a standard for what used to be called “Batterer Programs”.

-A NOMAS Model program is grounded in the feminist political analysis that men’s violence against women is rooted in patriarchy and male supremacy. This is in opposition to the widespread assumption that men’s violence against women is rooted in their own trauma, or lack of anger management skills, or what have you.

-A NOMAS model program is not built on a medical model of therapeutic intervention, but on a social change model, as one facet of a widespread coordinated community response to men’s violence against women (and against certain other men not judged to be ‘real men’).The training is not intended for individuals who abuse, or survived abuse, so much as it is for people who want to run a program to serve the courts in monitoring compliance by DV offenders. In a sea of programs wanting and claiming to ‘fix abusive men’, and thereby think of the problem as limited to ‘a few bad apples’.

-The NOMAS model begins with the idea that ???????????? ???????????? in a male supremacy are trained to be callous, disrespectful, coercive, and violent, and that ???????????? ???????????? have to make the intentional choice to walk against that patriarchal tide.

-A NOMAS Model program will only ever interact with the few men whose abuse meets a legal threshold of criminality, which comes to the attention of the police, who decide to pursue the issue, to the point of a trial, and there is a conviction, and the court decides to mandate the man to a DV Offender program.

-A NOMAS Model program may only interact with a very small percentage of men, but it is honest about what these programs can do, who these programs serve, and how to maximize the safety of the abused partner. That’s why a NOMAS Model DV Offender program MUST be part of a larger, coordinated community response.